I do think the economies of countries pay a pretty steep price for socialist policies, but certainly respect the desire to create a ‘fairer’ system – even though I question whether that desire is actually achieved.

What you have been describing is Socialism in the hands of a dictatorship, wherein one person controls the government, and therefore since the government owns the businesses, he owns the businesses as well.

Socialism is not a form of government as much as a form of economy. We live in a capitalist economy, which is often thought of, correctly or incorrectly, as an economic democracy. However, logically, capitalism has more resemblance to anarchy: a lack of control, fluctuations of power (money), and upon the upper classes oppressing the lower classes, revolution (strikes) begins to break out.

The primary driving idea of socialism is the belief that there should be a large shift in wealth down from the upper class. Though this at first seems unreasonable, it’s important to consider that the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans have more money than the bottom 90%.

If we, as a whole, decided we wanted to have a communist or socialist economy, then by electing representatives/senators/presidents, etc. who would vote for an amendment to the constitution to make it as such, it could be done without changing how the government itself is run at all. Communism is the equal dividing of all wealth among all of the people. Personally, I believe that such a thing is not fair, as there are many people who do honestly deserve more or less wealth. Socialism is virtually the same as capitalism, however there are no business owners. Instead, the employees run the business together with the government.